Michael Den Tandt: Justin Trudeau may be more than just a pretty face

Justin Trudeau may be more than just a pretty face

The Liberal leadership race is over. So let’s move beyond, if such a thing is possible, the now predictable back-and-forth about Justin Trudeau’s hair, celebrity, charisma, vacuity, experience or lack of it. Separate the ideas from the man, and what do you have? What is it worth?

Let’s begin with Quebec, where the Liberals now hold eight seats – compared with five for the Bloc, five for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, zero for the Greens and 57 for Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats. Trudeau, it is often noted, speaks perfect French, has a power base in Quebec, and intends to try to use that as a launch pad to national power – his first target being Mulcair and his 57 Quebec MPs. Fine. But of what does the power base consist? What will Trudeau say, in the election campaign of 2015, to draw fellow Quebecers into his tent?

In fact, he has been speaking about this for some time – since before he announced for the leadership – and the position is interesting. At the final Grit debate in Montreal, in his closing remarks in French, Trudeau articulated it more forcefully and bluntly than he has in the past. Much is lost in translation. The crux though, is that Canada has been “buying” Quebecers off for the past 30 years; that this pattern is outdated and insulting; and that Quebecers are secure enough now in their culture and language to embrace Canada without calculation or equivocation.

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The late Robert Bourassa, who dominated Quebec politics for a generation and coined the term “le federalisme rentable” (federalism that pays) will have been rolling in his grave.

Compare this to what Stephen Harper’s Conservatives say about Quebec: Nothing. Having tried and failed to ingratiate themselves with the “Quebec-as-nation” gambit in 2006, then been laughed out of the province in 2008 by folksinger Michel Rivard’s acerbic video sendup of their cuts to arts funding, the Conservatives have given up on Quebec. Tom Mulcair, however, has much to say: He wants the federal Clarity Act re-written to allow for separation following a referendum vote of 50%, plus one. And he has said, as recently as last year, speaking of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that “New Democrats will continue to work to ensure that one day it becomes part of a Constitution that includes us all.”

Coincidentally, Quebec’s new Liberal leader, Philippe Couillard, has a similar view. He wants Quebec’s signature on the Constitution by 2017. Now, It does not take a savant to read those tea leaves: Either Parti Quebecois Premier Pauline Marois, with a majority, or Couillard, will be soon be burning up the highway between Quebec City and Ottawa with their lists of urgent demands and grievances in hand. Trudeau, for now, is the only federal politician to have forcefully articulated a position on how Ottawa could respond in the national interest. Harper is too weak in Quebec to break any new ground. Mulcair is too beholden to soft-nationalists in his ranks, and threatened by the Bloc Quebecois, to do much but pander.

Now examine the other major fork in the road facing Canadians, to the west: Resources. The Harper government’s stance amounts to forcefully articulated extractivism: Pull the bitumen and other goodies from the ground as quickly as possible and get them to market. Mulcair is at the opposite end of that discussion. Trudeau has placed himself squarely between the two: “Pipeline, sure, but not there,” he said some time back, in response to Gateway. He’s in favour of Keystone Xl. Saturday in Montreal, Trudeau restated what will be one of his mantras in 2015: Rather than choose between the environment and the economy, embrace both. Coincidentally, that is also the position of the Premier of Alberta and the vast majority of senior executives in the oil patch.

There’s more: Trudeau is the only non-Conservative Canadian politician, except perhaps for NDP rogue Bruce Hyer, now an independent, ever to have said on the record that the federal long-gun-registry was “a failure.” (Though he later, regretfully, backpedalled). That’s not controversial in rural, western and northern Canada: It’s just the truth. Trudeau’s proposed reform of riding nominations – every candidate must win the nomination fair and square, no appointments, no gender-based quotas, no “star’” candidates parachuted in from above – subverts his own party’s long-standing practice. Would it be a good idea for that to become standard practice? By the same token, would it be healthy for Canada if the other two major national party leaders spoke blunt truths to Quebec soft nationalists, or took a balanced, pragmatic approach to resource extraction?

The answer, I think many fair-minded people would agree, is yes. One does not have to personally like or dislike Trudeau to accept this: He has taken some important and clear positions for which there is a constituency in the country. In addition to so-called charisma, it explains why he’s raising so much money.

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